So I guess Frank Graves and Ekos Polling really has it all on the line in the Ontario election. Either Graves looks like a genius at polling or he will once and for ever put to rest any doubt how much of a Liberal CBC hack many accuse him of being. Graves seems to be bucking the trend from the other pollsters, giving McGuinty's Liberals a roughly 7% lead over Hudak's PC Party. Interesting. Let's look back at Graves track record in the 2011 federal election, shall we?
"These seat projections are based on EKOS’ opinion polling. The projections are based on national, regional, and, in some cases, sub-regional polling projected onto the results of the last election. They do not pretend to predict individual ridings.
[OTTAWA – May 1, 2011] As we conclude Campaign 41 and await the public judgement, a few final comments are in order. Despite a bewildering array of contradictory evidence from the earlier polls it now appears that what was previously thought unimaginable has now become a point of consensus. The final estimates of party support including today’s final sample are 33.9 points for the Conservatives, 31.2 for the NDP, 21.0 for the Liberals, 6.4 for the Bloc, and 6.0 for the Green Party.
When we adjust this based on an index which predicts the most likely to vote we arrive at 34.0 points for the Conservatives, 31.6 for the NDP, 20.8 for the Liberals, 6.4 for the Bloc, and 5.9 for the Green Party.
As shocking as those numbers would have seemed just a few weeks ago, they are now more or less stable and undoubtedly accurate. The only real question remaining, and frankly this is more a matter of anecdotal curiosity at this stage, is how these translate into the new seat distribution in Canada’s next parliament. Recognising the vagaries of sampling error, vote splitting and other factors, we are going to provide an estimate at the national level which is couched around a somewhat arbitrary band of uncertainty.
After the ballots are counted tomorrow, we expect to see the following:
1) CPC: 130 to 146 seats
2) NDP: 103 to 123 seats
3) LPC: 36 to 46 seats
4) BQ: 10 to 20 seats
5) GP: 1 seat
Wow! Missed the actual Conservative by almost 6%, and seat count by quite a bit as well.